Key Witness in Gang Case Wraps Up Testimony

When the prosecution’s chief witness in the Mexican Mafia trial finally completed his testimony, it wasn’t soon enough for the supporters of the 13 defendants on trial.

“Get out of here,” muttered one relative in the audience as Ernest (Chuco) Castro left the Los Angeles courtroom Friday after spending nearly two months on the witness stand, testifying against his former brethren in the Mexican Mafia prison gang.

For the relatives and friends of the defendants, all suspected members or associates of the Mexican Mafia charged with murder, extortion and other crimes in a federal racketeering case, Castro is a lying instigator who is out to save his own skin.

But for the prosecution, Castro was a valuable ally who provided a rare inside look at the Eme, which is the Spanish pronunciation for the letter M and is the name commonly used for the gang. After all, prosecutors say, he took part in many of the group’s illegal plans to extend its influence beyond California’s prisons, where the gang was born in the late 1950s.

He knew many of the group’s leading figures, including one of its founders, Joe (Pegleg) Morgan. Castro had joined the Eme in 1983, after being in and out of jails as a member of the Barrio Nuevo Estrada gang in L.A.’s Eastside.

Agreeing to cooperate with federal investigators after getting busted for illegally possessing weapons as an ex-con in November 1993, he seemed the perfect person to lay out the inner workings of the prison gang in court.

Not only did he know the 13 defendants--all of them suspected heavyweights in the Eme--he also gave the FBI the chance to secretly videotape Eme meetings by helping to arrange hotel rooms where Eme business was discussed. Listening in, the agents heard the defendants allegedly plot to murder individuals who opposed them; demand “taxes” from street gangs that sold drugs, and plan the group’s move into Orange County to control street gangs there.

In addition, Castro wore a body wire to surreptitiously record numerous conversations about Eme business at area parks and restaurants. He also taped calls made from his home telephone.

Overall, 15 videotapes and several dozen audio recordings, all prepared with Castro’s help, were played in court while he was on the stand, explaining the context and meanings of the conversations.

The 29-count indictment includes charges that the defendants are responsible for seven murders, seven attempted murders and conspiracy to kill in eight other cases. It will be up to the jury to decide how credible Castro is, but he certainly gave the panel plenty to consider.

“I was involved in the activities that were going on with the Eme,” Castro testified. “I was going to all the meetings, being there when something had to be done, decisions had to be made. I participated.”

Later in his direct examination, Castro matter-of-factly gave the reasons why he and others belong to the Mexican Mafia.

“Prior to your membership in the Eme from 1979 until 1983 [when he became a member], did you participate in violent acts?” Assistant U.S. Atty. Lisa Lench asked.

“Yes,” he replied.

“And why did you participate in those violent acts?” Lench inquired.

“That’s what I believed an Eme member did,” he said.

“Did you want to become a member of the Eme?” she asked

“Yes,” he responded.

“Why?”

“That’s the ultimate gang.”

“Why did you become a member of it?”

“Because I want to be a member of the ultimate gang.”

But Castro also admitted that the Mexican Mafia didn’t always act like the ultimate gang. Among other things, Castro testified:

* No one is really in charge of the Eme. It has a loose command structure with no “generals,” making it difficult to determine if the word of one carnal--the term Eme members use to refer to themselves--carries any real authority within the group.

* It’s hard to confirm who really is a carnal. Government tapes show that at some of the videotaped hotel meetings, even some of the Eme carnales present couldn’t figure out who was a member. Such confusion is one reason authorities can only guess at the group’s true strength--somewhere between 200 and 400 hard-core members.

* Although a cardinal rule of the Eme states that no member “politick,” or bad-mouth, against another member, the secret tapes showed that some members regularly talked against each other.

* In violation of another rule that puts a member’s family off limits to hits and other threats, government tapes showed that some defendants talked of killing the mother of defendant Ruben (Tupi) Hernandez because of her alleged interference in the taxing of Eme-sanctioned drug dealing in Chino. The attack was never carried out, and Hernandez’s mother, JoBerta Wizer, who has attended nearly every day of the trial, showed no emotion in court at the mention of the threat.

Defense attorneys said they could not interview Castro before the trial because he is in a government protection program. When they finally had a chance to confront him, those attorneys focused in on his agreement to cooperate with the federal agents.

Defense attorney Richard Steingard, for example, got Castro to acknowledge that he hasn’t paid any back income taxes, as he had promised to do, on the drug profits he got before becoming an informant.

Castro also admitted that he violated his agreement with authorities by illegally possessing weapons, continuing to collect “taxes” from street gangs and participating in Eme discussions about attacking certain individuals, including actor Edward James Olmos whose prison gang movie “American Me” angered the Eme. Three murder charges in the case involve the slaying of a trio of unpaid advisors in the making of the 1992 film.

As part of the immunity agreement, Castro would not face federal charges stemming from his arrest for illegally possessing a rifle and several semiautomatic guns found at his home in November 1993. He faces sentencing in Los Angeles Superior Court after pleading guilty in 1995.

“Let me ask you a question,” Steingard began, looking directly at Castro. “Who is cooperating with who?”

“You violated [the agreement] and nothing happened to you, and the government continued to keep you on as an informant. Did you believe there was anything you would have done or could have done to terminate this cooperation agreement?”

Committing a violent crime would have killed the deal, Castro replied.

But his ordering “assaults on inmates didn’t qualify as a violent crime?” Steingard wanted to know.

No, Castro responded, because federal agents were monitoring his conversations and could prevent such violence.

However, under persistent questioning by other defense attorneys, Castro admitted that he had not reported everything he had an obligation to tell authorities. Defense lawyer Elsa Leyva went after Castro about committing purported crimes while in the government’s employ. Hadn’t he ordered hits while a government informant? Leyva asked.

“No, not to my knowledge,” he maintained.

The answer brought snickers of disbelief from the defendants and their supporters in the audience.

There was more snickering Friday when, under questioning by defense attorney Yolanda Barrera, Castro maintained that he worked to preserve peace among street gangs--even though he was heard on one tape ordering that Latino inmates at a county jail attack black inmates.

That conversation, Barrera pointed out, took place several months after Castro became a government informant, promising to give up his criminal ways.

Castro’s deliberate manner often seemed to irritate defense lawyers. They sometimes mocked him because, after taking a long time to consider an answer to a question, he would only offer a “I don’t recall that” or “I don’t remember.”

When Castro was unable to say what an associate, who sold drugs for him, was doing in a particular area controlled by the 18th Street gang, Leyva quickly asked him, “Well, he wasn’t selling Amway [products], was he?”

After a long pause, Castro replied, “He didn’t tell me he was.”

Even the judge, a tough-talking jurist, seemed particularly perturbed on a recent Friday afternoon as the cross-examination dragged on. On that day, he seemed poised to hold defense attorney Morton Boren in contempt for using obscene language in cross-examining Castro.

U.S. District Judge Ronald S.W. Lew refused to accept an apology even after Boren offered one for his language.

“You think you’re cute and you’re using language that is terribly inappropriate for any court of law,” Lew lectured the lawyer. “You watch yourself. The record will speak for what you are doing. And I’m going to tell you something: I, like any other federal judge, do not forget. That kind of attitude is not acceptable in any court of law.”

When the subdued Boren left the courtroom, escaping any immediate punishment, his 12 colleagues gave him a rousing cheer.

The prosecution, which began its case around Thanksgiving, has scheduled 40 more witnesses to be called. Court officials say the trial may go into May.